Ennis ready to join teammates at AM

Most of the members of Texas A&M's 2009 signing class are already on campus and going through team workouts and 7-on-7 drills. However, defensive lineman Kirby Ennis is not among that group. He is still back home in Huntsville.

It is not grade problems or NCAA Clearinghouse issues that are keeping Ennis from College Station. In fact, it is a pretty simple explanation. The 6-foot-3, 255-pound defender is ready to join his teammates and will soon.

"Since the second session of summer school at A&M hasn't started, we would have to pay our own way and everything until then," said Ennis. "We just didn't have the ability to do that right now.

"I'll be down there next Sunday. I've been working out a whole lot. I'm ready to get down there and join everybody else. I'm ready to start college."

Ennis has had a chance to speak with a couple other members of his class that have already reported.

"I was in Navasota a couple of days ago for 7-on-7," he said. "I was kind of just watching them. Brandal Jackson, he was up there and I was talking to him. He said the workouts are hard and they make you work, but everybody looked pretty good.

"I also talk to Dustin Harris on the regular. They haven't really done any techniques or agility drills or anything, but he says he's adjusting pretty well to corner in 7-on-7. He said he's getting pretty strong and he's getting cut."

Ennis had a chance to bond with a few of his teammates during the Bayou Bowl practices and game a few weeks back. The Texas team defeated Louisiana 17-14 and Ennis played both defensive end and defensive tackle in the game. He played linebacker as a junior in high school and end this past year, so the interior line was something pretty foreign to him.

"It wasn't a struggle," he said of playing tackle. "You just have to take on those double-teams and everything. It was my first time ever playing it, but they said I did pretty well. Every once in a while, I would get too high and kind of get driven back a little bit, but I was good most of the time. I ended up with a few tackles for losses.

"I'm weighing around 255 or 256 (pounds). It's all good weight, but hopefully I at least get one year at d-end. If not, I'll just play whatever I play."

Joined on the defensive line by fellow A&M signee Stephen Barrera, Ennis says that they were playing for the Aggies as much as they were for their home state.

"I'm pretty sure everybody did," he said of playing for their future schools. "Everybody that's going to college had to represent for their school. Stephen and I wanted to let them know that we could start getting things turned back around at A&M."

The second summer session at Texas A&M starts next Monday July 6. Ennis is already enrolled in classes and will be moving in on Sunday.